Other questions Flashcards
101, Describe the best/worst incidence that you encountered in your medical career (residency).- Best
(Best) There is no one single moment that particularly shines, but I would say the moment finishing my first block as a senior resident. I felt there was a significant jump from an intern to a resident. Now you are asked questions. Now you are expected to know answers. Now you are expected to manage a team. It did not work out well for the first week, but gradually became better. I tried to show safety and openness to team members, encouraged them to ask questions. When I did not know answers to, I struggled together but tried to lead them by exploring resources together, re-phrasing questions and figuring out who to reach out to. I think the collective effort made an amazing team, and as a leader of a small team, that was very rewarding and satisfying.
101, Describe the best/worst incidence that you encountered in your medical career (residency).-Worst
(Worst) So far the worst incidence that I encountered in my medical career was COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier in the pandemic, we had to choose the first team member as a frontline provider for COVID-19, from our colleagues. The decision was left to us, so we had a sat down conversation. Some had important life events coming up, some had small children, we all had good reasons and the conversation was very challenging. We tried to maintain a safe environment during the conversation, showed openness. Did not force anyone to make a decision. In the end, some of our brave colleagues raised their hand and the rest supported them.
102, Tell me about your failure and what you learned/how you handled?
One failure that I realized was at the beginning of becoming a senior resident, it was more of an attitude that could be improved. I had the tendency to be afraid of not knowing the answer when interns or junior colleges asked me questions. When someone asked me questions that I did not know the answer, I sometimes pretended like I knew, and ended up not providing the best answer or not answering the question directly. I realized that it is okay to struggle through things together, but you can still be the leading person by utilizing your sense as a senior looking through resource together, identifying who to ask questions, supporting them how to re-phrase questions. At the end of these small process, I enjoy finding answers together and sharing some sense of achievement.
103, Describe some difficult time in your life.
That was when I was in my 6th year at medical school. I went to NY for one month for my clinical clerkship. When I returned home, my grandfather had already passed away. We lived close and I admired my grandfather in many ways. He was old, was in a frail condition, and had extensive lung cancer. My family knew that I was looking very forward to the program, so decided to tell me about his death afterwards for me to concentrate on the training. There were lots of love from my family but I couldn’t help feeling lost.
105, Tell me about a conflict with your colleagues and how you handled it.
107, Tell me about a difficult decision you have made.
There were multiple conflicts during the times of the program merge with MSMW and MSBI. One representative conflict, which I ended up taking leadership role, was the written signout structure. In MSBI we utilized epic feature of handoff which we customized to make it day task oriented. However, at MSMW, epic handoff was only used for minimal information for the night float, and there were external word document shared file for day task related sign outs. A lot of the BI colleagues found this extremely less efficient, an wanted to migrate the BI style handoff.
However, we were just complaining with no structured logic. I assume that that was not pleasant from the other program’s side. So to make it a collective impact and to make it a proposal rather than complaints, I held a meeting to reveal pros and cons for each handoff style, made a powerpoint slide to propose BI style handoff with clear logic.
During the meeting, I tried to be mindful about providing a safe environment for everyone and not accusing each other. In the end, our proposal was escalated to the program leadership, and our proposal was incorporated.
108, What are critical aspects of communication with patient?
I think the critical aspect of communication is, whether it be patient or your colleagues, is providing a safe environment and showing openness. For someone engaged in a conversation of any kind, they have to feel comfortable that they can freely express ideas, ask questions, and sometimes engaging in conflicts. Without a sense of safety, no one can speak up. There will be less innovations. We will not be able to explore our values. Very basic, but I find this extremely important.
116, What do you do to cope with stress?
Being with my family is one of my special moments. My daughter is 6, who has positive sprits, my son is 4, who is always silly, and my wife is my best partner. When I am home, my 100% effort goes to my family, and that is how I cope with stress. What was interesting is, there was a time I was not with my family for a month. At first I thought that I could focus on my personal interests, or be more productive. Those were true, but I was not coping with stress during that time.
1, What is your leadership style?
My leadership style is providing psychological safety within the team, respecting diversity and showing inclusiveness. This maximizes performance of each individual by making everyone feel comfortable and easier to ask questions. For example, as a resident working with interns and medical students, my main role is to provide a safe environment for them to freely express ideas. I believe being sensitive about work environment is one form of leadership.
19-1, When was the last time you got mad? How did you deal with it?
(emotion-self)
Outside of work, last time I got mad was when my daughter kept breaking promise. It was mostly homework related. Although I was internally mad, I tried not to express that. I rather tried to explore her reasons, what she was struggling with, and giving some alternative options so that she could feel that she is the one making decisions.
(emotion-patient)
One episode with a patient that made me mad was when a patient of mine kept talking endless at my outpatient clinic. It is very difficult when you have a panel of patients to see and when one keeps talking non-stop for an hour. I was internally mad or rather frustrated. I did not show that I was mad running late for my schedule, I rather tried to explore her reasons, what she was struggling with,
(emotion-colleague)
Once, I got mad with my colleague when his signout was unorganized. That was his last day at work and he had a vacation coming, so I could understand that he was excited to leave his work. I told him that this is very important for a safe clinical practice and told him to take some time.
19-2, When was the last time you were sad? How did you deal with it?
(emotion-self)
The last time I felt sad was when I saw in the news that a baby and a mother died of car crash. These sorts of news are everywhere, and I did not mind them, but after becoming a father, I am sensitive to these news because they make me think of my family.I try to think over what our family can do to prevent us from these tragedies.
(emotion-patient)
The last time I felt sad was when my patient with terminal lung cancer could not go home and died in our hospital. He had a strong wish to go home, but his family hesitated to take him home because they were worried about their burden of care. The message here is that patient’s will may not come true depending on support structure.
19-3, When was the last time you were extremely happy? How did you deal with it?
(emotion-self)
There are many happy moments including small ones and big ones, but I would say the day my daughter was born and my son was born, are one of my special moments. Simply, without reasons, my family make my life special.
Since then, our life became very busy caring for them. I am making effort to enjoy every moment, because time flies fast.
(emotion-patient)
I once had a patient with tuberculosis who was pregnant. She was alone in the hospital, isolated, and left her husband and her older child at home. For months, she told me of her love towards her family. Fortunately, she was discharged, went back to her family, and had a safe delivery. I was very happy to hear from her that life was all back to normal again.
19-4, When was the last time you were embarrassed? How did you deal with it? (emotion-self)
The last time I felt embarrassed was when I asked a stupid question in front of everyone at a large conference. I cannot recall the question, but I think everyone everyone in the floor knew the answer.
I strongly believe that even a stupid question is better than not asking, because it will lead to your learning, and is a good chance to show your participation.
31, Tell me about the system in healthcare in Japan. How is it different from the US?
I think insurance is biggest difference. In Japan, there is national insurance where patients pay 10-30% of the actual cost. I would have to say that it is not well balanced with high financial burden to the country. On the other had in the US, where private insurance plays a bigger role, it makes sense that market principles cover high end costs, but the downside is the health care disparity. Which is better? I do not have a great answer but seeing both systems I see pros and cons.
33, What do you do when you make a mistake?
It depends on the type of mistake.
If it is my personal mistake that does not involve anyone, I would focus on figuring out why it happened, and make my effort for prevention.
If it is a mistake involving someone, I would first make a sincere apology for the consequence. I would then figure out why it happened.
If it is a healthcare setting, sharing your incidence within your institution is important in preventing others from making the same mistake.
45-1, Tell me about a stressful situation you experienced in medical career/residency.
Medical career
Can talk about assigning a front line provider for OCVID-19.
Residency
Can talk about program merge
